what vegetable seeds can I save to replant

steelskies(5)November 15, 2011

If I save tomato, corn & butternut squash seeds, will they grow true to the plant next year if I plant them. Is there a list somewhere of which vegetable seeds I can save that will do this. I know some plants don't reproduce exactly like themselves. thank you.

Squash are trickier. You have to make sure it doesn't cross with another squash if you want it to breed true. This can be done with careful work. Tear open an unopened male flower, collect pollen on a q-tip or small brush, tear open an unopened female flower, pollinate it, and then wrap the female in a loose bag (paper or cloth) to prevent insects from further pollinating it with other pollen.

Corn will work if isolated well enough, but will work better if you bag it until silks are ready to accept pollen, then pollinate and re-bag.

If your plants are not hybrid, yes. That is, if they were labeled heirloom, open-pollinated (OP), something like that. You may still have some diversity in leaf shape etc. but it is even interesting.
If the original seed stated it was a hybrid of any sort, or maybe "F1", then it is simply unpredictable. May still be nice, I did get some very curious bicolor tomatoes and big pumpkins that way. Peppers may be sweet with Very Hot seed, for example.

I like to save Cilantro seeds (aka 'coriander')and resow at three week intervals, also Parsley, Fava beans, tomatillos, Roma tomato, pumpkin and others. We've had carrot go to seed and actually got excellent volunteers from outside of the raised beds...beets did it too and we always thinned both so meticulously for years, but the volunteers just grew before we knew or made any effort, so we just harvested, and harvested and harvested and they did great, tasted great etc...

Many of the greens (Kale, chard, collards etc.) are very easy to save seed from. But, these tend to hybridize easily so plant one type per year or growing season so that they don't flower at the same time.